Life and Death...It Starts at Birth...

Today has been a day of reflection and vivid memories. It has been more than 8 years and yet it seems as if the wound has barely begun to scab over if at all for most of the families of the victims of Sep 11th 2001. I personally had worked in the North Tower for a short while as a teenager part time after school and many a time had visited my best friend when she worked at Amex at the Trade Center as well over the years. I even enjoyed the Observatory many a time, it really was something awesome to be so high up on top of the city...

I had been off on maternity leave for a few months and was due some time mid Sept...so was just waking up when I got the call to put the TV on...

The rest of this post is something I wrote on Sept 17th...after I was back home with my new baby...my little Fiona...it was written fast and at 3am...as always this is how I organize my thoughts...I thought I'd post that in this blog as well so that it is recorded here along with today's musings...

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Baby Fiona is here!


After months of expecting and guessing and wondering and hoping and wishing and kicking...she is finally here!

Our little Fiona Constance Kearns was born on September 13th at 9:02am, weighing in at 8 lbs 7oz and 21" long!

On September 11 at 10am I sat in front of the TV and watched in horror as New York City was attacked...the World Trade Center, and our own Twin Towers crumbled like something only Hollywood would make up...I once worked in one of them a while back. That shock and then the realization that John actually worked on Wall Street only a stone's throw away from them rattled me so bad that without warning I started feeling contractions one after the other...

John managed to call me from a store he had ducked into just as the second tower came crumbling down, and told me he was alright...there was no going back...my body had started the age old rhythm of labor that would ultimately culminate in the miracle of birth...

It was not to be that day however...as one day came and went I waited to make sure and by the 12th, at 3pm I started to keep track as they were getting more and more painful by the minute...as it was my first time and not wanting to be one that "cries wolf" I waited some more at home as they grew in intensity to a point where I was handling them but knew some progress must be happening as my body got ready for the big event.

At 8pm that night John, Steve, Alina and I all went out to IHOP for a quick dinner where I advised them to ignore any grimace I may make every so often...by the time we were through I realized that walking brought on my contractions like wildfire...with no real breaks in between. Sitting down slowed them a bit...but by midnight or near 1am I called my doctor who advised me that I was not in labor as they were fairly irregular (4,8,10,12,4,8,10,12 minutes apart). I did recall reading somewhere however that when your water has not broken they can be fairly irregular up till you're near the end...but did as she ordered...(drink a glass of wine to slow the contractions, get some sleep and then come into the hospital in the morning).

I tried to lay down but did not fall asleep...(you try falling asleep while someone hits you in the abdomen, only it feels more like your I insides are being ripped out)...and finally by 330am I woke up the “team”...(my sister and John) who had really not even fallen asleep yet either...(Ok, John had for all of 5 minutes)...and by 430am we were on our way...

When we got there I realized I could not walk! My legs were trembling like nobody's business and after plopping myself in a wheelchair, we made our way to the maternity ward. The nurses took a look and advised me that I was at 6 to 7 centimeters and assured me that the trembling was due to the fact that I was in active labor! At this point my water had still not broken but the contractions decided to come on one after the other with barely a few seconds in between...

By this time dear reader, may I just mention that my aforementioned "team" became two people I did not know...all of a sudden they were experts on "reading" the "contractions monitor" and telling me to relax and breathe, and just basically doing and saying all the right things! Neither one fainted or any such dramatic thing...I'm told the fact that I did not yell like a banshee helped keep them calm...All in all it was a marvelous experience in that it was all natural like I had envisioned and I was so set in my ways not to take any medication that it did not occur to me to ask for them even when in extreme pain...

I just wanted to hear them tell me that the contraction was almost over and to hang in there...of course till the next one started...but we made it! The worst was from 8 to 10 centimeters where you have to basicaly fight your body and not push until you're 10, not only are you dealing with the contraction but with the added pressure of the baby lowering itself into the birth canal...

The nurse had mentioned at about 8am that by 830 it would be time to push. I watched that clock every chance I could and at 830a I asked her to call the doctor as I saw she was not doing anything of the sort and she admitted to just giving me that time frame as a reference point and that I was not yet ready to push...I begged to differ and when she checked me she hastily exclaimed that the "baby is right here" and went to get the doctor as I started pushing...

When I heard them mention it sometimes takes 3 hours of pushing for a first birth, and after no sleep for 48 hours and all that labor I was in no way going to take that long! I pushed like as if my life depended on it and in half an hour my efforts were rewarded with the birth of little Fiona!

Exhausted but elated I watched as they cleaned her and then brought her to me...babies are fragile sure, but she had a very “strong” look to her, like broad shoulders and a very healthy set of lungs as manifested in her vocal outrage at being pushed out of the warm cocoon she had known for 10 months! The doctor was amazed that she was able to raise her head and commented that newborn babies were not supposed to be that strong…at this I realized that all the watermelon (cravings) that I’d consumed along with daily prayer that she would come out healthy even when I was puking my own guts out for over 6 months…all contributed to this phenomena…

As I looked at her in wonder and awe I could not believe she was my little baby. She had come from inside me! This little being was responsible for all those energetic kicks! She was our little "love child", one that John and I had "helped" to create...a miracle and an angel from heaven; a blessing of God.